Gordon Brown has likened himself to Heathcliff, the brooding, intense character in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. The Prime Minister is normally at pains to avoid being compared with other figures but his guard dropped in an interview with New Statesman, published today, in which the interviewer, Gloria De Piero, suggested to Mr Brown that many women viewed him as a Heathcliff-like figure.

Given that the character is famed for his vindictive side, the Prime Minister might have been expected to recoil in horror at such a comparison. But no. “Absolutely correct,” he replied, before adding: “Well, maybe an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff.”

It’s not perhaps the most flattering of comparisons (perhaps Gordon hasn’t read the book). But it does beg the question, open to LDV readers to answer, with which literary character would you compare the Lib Dem or Tory leaders…?